I can still remember when I was a young child at school, some teachers used to call us "stupid", "useless", "good-for-nothing", "idiot", etc. etc. I remember being hit on my back with the long ruler that one teacher used to have in her hand all day long. She would also rap our knuckles if she thought we were not fast enough in our work. Why did she hit me? It was because I was hunched over at my desk! So the punishment was to insert a long ruler through my arms across my back so that I would have the "correct" posture, i.e. to sit straight up. Ouch! It did hurt at first. Not as bad as being rapped on the knuckles with the edge of the ruler though.
Nowadays students take offence if the teacher were to utter such words like "stupid" or "idiot". One can't blame them. Who likes to be called stupid or an idiot? No one is stupid, no one is an idiot. We are blessed with unique talents. An autistic child has a talent too, it only has to be discovered. A friend has an autistic son who is very hyperactive but he is very good in mathematics. Another child is gifted in music.
I had boys in my school who were not academically inclined but they were very good cooks and had better presentation skills than the girls in cooking competitions. A few were very good with computers ( they learned on their own as we didn't have computer lessons in the curriculum then) and today they have their own computer stores in shopping complexes.
Today I received an email from my brother-in-law which contained a video clip of three young teenagers who have such beautiful voices. These teenage tenors reminded me of the late Pavoratti, the great tenor whose voice thrilled millions. I would like to share this clip with you and I hope you are able to hear their song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqUkUjeF4-c
Such talent makes one spellbound.
I earnestly hope that all of us will strive to look beyond the exterior to discover the hidden talent or the latent potential of a person that is waiting to be unleashed.
